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An intelligent command
Command and control applications ensure the efficient management of resources and the response to incidents, yet as emerging technologies have more and more impact on the control room equipment, we take a closer look at how the command and control systems are evolving. This two part feature will address the use of VoIP and perhaps even more importantly interoperability and collaboration. To begin, we take a closer look at the current trends…
Traditionally managing the emergency call handling process, command and control systems (C&C) have focussed on assisting control room staff in identifying and mobilising the right resources for each incident. What’s more C&C is generally seen as the hub of emergency service organisations, predominantly because it is the route through which most calls for assistance are reported.
Howard Papworth, Intergraph explains, “Automated lookups (based on EISEC landline and mobile location data), resource recommendations (based on personnel skills, availability, AVLS and street network routing) make this process relatively fast and straightforward.
“However, many of the calls to police call centres are not life threatening; they are other, non emergency or enquiry calls from the public. These calls remain the most common way that public contact the emergency services and the numbers are likely to increase still further with the advent of the Single Non Emergency Number (SNEN). C & C systems need to be able to handle these enquiries to provide a better quality of service to the public. The call taker needs to know that someone called yesterday, the nature of the call and whether it was dealt with satisfactorily. Many of these calls will result in follow up actions that do not involve blue light action.”
Matthew White, Ordnance Survey, Senior Geographic Information Specialist comments, “When it comes to responding to incidents, there is nothing like being in the right place at the right time. Improving emergency response times, aiding response and recovery by directing crews effectively to the scene and dispatching the most appropriate resource to attend an incident means that there is a growing need to ensure that command and control solutions make increased use of accurate and up-to-date geographic information. Geographic information is pervasive in front-line emergency response. To meet these growing challenges Ordnance Survey provides geographic information that is benefiting emergency services. OS MasterMap for example, provides the level of accuracy and currency which is critical to any command and control solution. Whether it is using OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 to search for an address or using OS MasterMap Integrated Transport Network Layer to route appliances to an incident it is imperative that operators have access to the most accurate and up-to-date geographic information in order to save lives and/or property. Emergency services are under increased pressure to deliver improved services at reduced operating costs and therefore the challenge is to ensure that command and control solutions make use of accurate and timely geographic information. This is one of the key trends, which Ordnance Survey has recognised across police authorities, fire services and ambulance trusts.”
For maximum effectiveness, as pointed out by David White, Sungard Vivista, the C&C should should integrate with many other systems such as HR to receive details of personnel and their competencies; a corporate gazetteer for location information; an intelligence system to share information on people and locations; and communications systems to enable effective communication between the control room and resources. However, command and control is often implemented in isolation or with limited interoperability. SunGard believes this cannot continue; there is becoming greater emphasis on integration and command and control is central to this.
SunGard’s Command and Control system was built as a suite of interoperable components with open, standards-based APIs to enable data to be shared with other systems and organisations. For example, this is being used by the Highways Agency to enable incidents to be passed between police forces and the Agency’s Regional Control Centres, which means data can be shared quickly and accurately, thus enabling a better response to the public.
The system also integrates with SunGard’s ICCS, enabling closer interaction of communications and IT, and more efficient communication between officers and the control room. These interfaces can also be used to deliver mobile data, thus providing higher quality information directly to those who need it, when they need it, wherever they may be located.
Evolving systems and current trends
The changing and increasing national threats are driving solutions to focus on improving and enhancing the operational capability of the user both individually, as part of their organisation and inter-organisation. Dr. Mark Bentall Chief Technical Officer, EADS DCS & SDC adds that this has led to a broadening of capabilities with the key trends focusing on: situational awareness (location, visualisation and augmentation); synchronisation (right information at the right place at the right time to enable improved decision making; and interoperability (operational, regional, national and international).
“The integration of ICCS with command and control systems is important,” points out Duncan Gerrard, Senior Consultant, APD Communications. “Useful facilities include the ability to pre-populate incident details based on Calling Line Identity and subscriber details, or to make calls from details stored on the command & control system. Cortex, APD’s ICCS, uses the industry standard XML protocol to integrate with all of the major Command and Control systems available today.
“I believe that the current trend is towards a high degree of integration of presentation, with all of the communications resources available on a single screen. However this could end up reaching saturation point where trying to cram too much information into a single screen is a step too far. Screens may become cluttered and less easy to use. It’s a question of establishing a balance between data availability and usability,” he concludes.
However, it is important to note, as pointed out by Papworth, that C&C systems cannot view their operational world in isolation; they need to share information both with other internal systems to streamline workflows and with other external organisations to support a wider regional and national operational picture. Data needs to be entered once at the point of call and fed automatically, based on the type of data, to other related systems. Automatic, electronic links to other organisations within an area to share resource and incident data between neighbouring services (e.g. local government, highways agency, other emergency services, etc.) are required to support the key drivers of the Civil Contingencies Act.
Integration is key
The need to integrate systems both within an organisation and between organisations is increasing. The London terrorist attacks in July 2005 highlighted the need for the emergency services to share information in order to provide a more effective response. It is not only the increased terrorist threat that will drive this forward; natural disasters such as Boscastle and major incidents such as Buncefield mean that the emergency services need to be able to provide a more coordinated response. With the rollout of Airwave across the services, they will have interoperable communications; it is a logical progression to be able to share data through interoperable command and control systems.
SunGard has been at the leading edge of incident exchange through its contract with the Highways Agency, which is responsible for responding to minor and non-crime incidents on the motorways. Since calls are typically received by the police in the first instance, there needed to be an efficient way of passing data between the police and the Highways Agency. SunGard Command and Control already had an incident exchange capability but this has been enhanced to interoperate with other vendors’ systems to not only pass the initial incident details but also updates in both directions.
Another area for command and control development is to make better use of information. This includes retrieval of information from other systems to provide a more informed response to a situation, and passing information captured in command and control to other systems, such as crime and intelligence, for further investigation and analysis. The volume of information available to an operator continues to rise and, as a result, command and control systems will become more intelligent to help the operators make decisions and to recognise patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
In five years time, the Olympic Games will come to London. This will provide a real focus to delivering the points described above since, although centred on London, events will be held at many venues around the UK: the need to share information, processes large volumes of data, and provide a unified response to any situation that might arise is clear.
Bentall adds, “We are also likely to see increased mission critical data combined with very high bandwidth supplementary services. This new content will provide new opportunities to exploit information that is currently not foreseen. This demands technologies that enable adaptive solutions to support the uncertainty of future needs and opportunities without the need for major changes to the underlying solution.”
Gerrard also suggests that there will be an increasing use of ‘virtual control rooms’, so that a number of services can share a single system, necessary for joint control rooms. “We have deployed such integrated communications solutions at Wiltshire and Isle of Man police forces. Virtual control rooms can also be created from a number of separate control rooms and positions. This can improve the flexibility of operations, particularly for fallback and out-of-hours working.”
The growth of citizen journalism will also play a part in shaping ICCS and C & C technologies. Multi-media communications such as mobile phone camera stills and video clips captured by the public will become valuable data and therefore have to be managed within systems.
Finally cost of ownership will decrease, as voice & data converge, Voice Over IP becomes further utilised, and off-the-shelf hardware receives wide spread availability.
Key points on how C&C has evolved over the last year
Standards
General adoption of standards, both in database and formats for data exchange. For example the adoption of standard database technology for resilience and fallback (Oracle DataGuard and SQL Server 2005 Mirroring), protocols for exchanging data between internal and external systems (XML standards for data and Messaging engines e.g. Biztalk for enterprise integration).
Sensor Integration
Use of enhanced sensor technology to provide information for decision makers: for example automatic alerts can be generated by intelligent CCTV (generated when a vehicle parks in a sensitive location or bag is left unattended), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to identify people and property, sensors to measure temperature, traffic, chemical and biological agents, life signs, etc.
integration
For maximum effectiveness, as pointed out by David White, Sungard Vivista, the C&C should should integrate with many other systems such as HR to receive details of personnel and their competencies; a corporate gazetteer for location information; an intelligence system to share information on people and locations; and communications systems to enable effective communication between the control room and resources.
NEXT MONTH...
To conclude our feature on command and control systems, next month we report on the impact that both VoIP and the need for collaboration is having on C&C, covering scalability, performance, reliability and interoperability. In addition, next month will also contain an in-depth article on the fire service regional control centres.
